visits the white house to speak about the growth in anti asian hate crimes in america. live from our studio in singapore, this is bbc news. it s newsday. it s 7am in the morning here in singapore and 2am in ukraine, where it s reported that a russian air strike has hit a chemical plant in the embattled city of severodonetsk, releasing a cloud of dangerous gas. residents have been told to stay in bomb shelters to avoid the fumes. the ukrainians say russian forces now control most of severodonetsk, the main focus of the russian offensive in the donbas region. the local governor said the city wasn t surrounded, but continuous shelling was making it impossible to bring in supplies or evacuate the remaining civilians. and russian troops are pushing deeper into the region. this is the city of slovyansk, where three people have been killed in a russian missile strike. meanwhile, ukraine keeps calling for more weapons from the west. this is the former defence minister speaking to the
shootings and as well as about the victims here. reporter: right are here in cherokee county, authorities have released the names of the people who died as well as one survivor of the shooting in cherokee county. here is one of the families of a victim that one of our affiliates talked to, this is a woman named delana yan. this is so heartbreaking. he took a mother, a wife, a daughter and a sister for no reason. this family is broken because of this man. it is so hard on everybody today because this man has taken this innocent angel from us. he took an ad ad an angel from who would do anything for anybody. and according to the gofundme page that her family has set up, the family says that she was actually there for a couples 3 massage and that her husband made it out safely from the shooting but she did not. let s take a look at the four people who were killed at that location, that includes yan whom we ve mentioned. paul andre michaels, age 54. and tan and feng. and on
stereotypes in this attack. this isn t just a local story either. this speaks to the fear of asian americans nationwide and how they have been targeted especially since the start of the pandemic. we ve just learned that the president and the vice president will be traveling to atlanta tomorrow. they will be meeting with asian american leaders when they are there. let s start with natasha chen, she is joining us from cherokee county, georgia with the very latest. if we could just start with the latest on the case. why was this first court appearance canceled? reporter: yeah, we talked to the magistrate court clerk this morning and she said that the appearance was canceled at the request of the defendant s attorney and would not share any contact information for that attorney. right now we don t know when it will be rescheduled. and at this point, he is still being held in the cherokee county custody, this is one of two counties where he now faces a total of eight murder char
congresswoman told my colleague stephanie ruhle what happened in atlanta is a day that we saw coming. two senior administration officials are telling nbc news president biden and vice president harris will be meeting with asian american community leaders when they visit atlanta, georgia, tomorrow. in washington, the house just did something we don t see very often when it comes to major legislation. it passed a bill with pretty broad bipartisan support. we are talking about the violence against women act that expired two years ago. one of the bill s most vocal supporters, congresswoman debby dingell will share her experience with domestic violence right before that vote and she s going to join me ahead to talk about it. we got a big headline from the biden administration. according to a senior administration official, the president is set to meet his goal of 100 million shots in arms in his first 100 days and he is set do it as early as today. more than 40 days early. w
county official with a post erased in which he shared a t-shirt blaming china for the coronavirus saying the suspects in the shooting just had a bad day. he does claim it was not racially motivated. i spoke with investigators that, yes, he understood the gravity of it and was pretty much fed up, at the end of his rope and yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did. this was a really bad day for the victims too. today, celebrities are speaking out. testifying on capitol hill after speaking to nbc. this man targeted places where asian-americans were working. you don t have to peal the layers back far. i ll speak to activist coming up and with president biden and vice president harris. the president has addressed the shootings on wednesday. i know americans are very concerned. as you know, i ve been speaking about brutality against asian-americans for months and i thinks it very, very trouble some. joining me now from atlanta, nbc news correspon